OECD Public Governance Reviews

This series includes international studies and country-specific reviews of government efforts to make the public sector more efficient, effective, innovative and responsive to citizens’ needs and expectations. Publications in this series look at topics such as open government, preventing corruption and promoting integrity in the public service, risk management, illicit trade, audit institutions, and civil service reform. Country-specific reviews assess a public administration’s ability to achieve government objectives and preparedness to address current and future challenges. In analysing how a country's public administration works, reviews focus on cross-departmental co-operation, the relationships between levels of government and with citizens and businesses, innovation and quality of public services, and the impact of information technology on the work of government and its interaction with businesses and citizens.

This OECD Public Governance Review of Peru analyses key areas of public governance in Peru and identifies opportunities for improving the performance of the state in delivering better outcomes for all citizens. It examines co-ordination from the centre of government, evidence-based strategic planning and the decentralisation process to improve co-ordination across levels of government. It assesses the management of the civil service, legal and regulatory frameworks to implement digital government, and open-government and transparency policies. This review provides recommendations to assist the government in its objective of bolstering the state’s agility to set, steer and implement a national medium-term strategy for achieving inclusive growth and prosperity for all.

Peru has benefited since 2001 from a period of relative political and economic stability that has enabled millions of Peruvians to overcome poverty and join the ranks of the middle class. In response to important outstanding challenges relating to acute and persistent regional disparities and unequal growth, the national government is pursuing an agenda for more inclusive development that includes a strong focus on public administration reform. Peru is entering a new phase in its pursuit of more effective governance. This represents a unique opportunity to overcome institutional fragmentation and ministerial silos and enable the design, implementation and monitoring of multi-dimensional, multi-year national development strategies. Ultimately, the goal is to enhance institutional and decision-making capacity to achieve tangible improvements in outcomes for citizens and businesses in all regions of the country.

In recent years, the government of Peru has been stepping up efforts to pursue more inclusive national growth through a greater focus on public administration reform, including through the government’s decentralisation agenda that aims to give a voice to the country’s rural and remote regions. The government also recognises that a more participatory, transparent, open, efficient and effective public sector is essential to meeting citizens’ needs successfully.

The Republic of Peru is the sixth most populous state in Latin America and the seventh largest economy in the region (OECD, 2014). With an average economic growth rate of 5.3% between 2000 and 2014, the country stands out as one of the most rapidly evolving economies in Latin America, driven by significant reform and impressive economic momentum. This momentum, sustained by a combination of prudent macroeconomic policies, the country’s abundant natural resources and thorough structural reforms, has enabled Peru to make impressive socio-economic progress in recent years. These socio-economic advances are all the more outstanding as consecutive military coups, social unrest and recurring economic crises have negatively affected the country’s governance frameworks while eroding trust in public institutions.

This chapter provides an overview of Peru’s politico-administrative and socio-economic changes in recent years, as well as an analysis of the political history of Peru with the aim of understanding many of the challenges the country’s political leadership and public sector are facing today in their quest to make national growth more inclusive. This chapter proposes that addressing the challenges outlined and building resilient institutions can ultimately result in more inclusive growth and increased living standards for all Peruvians.

This chapter focuses on the centre of government (CoG) in the government of Peru, the institutional arrangements mandated to support the Head of Government and the Council of Ministers in exercising their stewardship over strategic decision making. The chapter builds on OECD experience in this area and underlines a shift from a primary administrative support function for the CoG to a position as strategic player with important responsibilities to foster vision, leadership and innovation across the public sector. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations to strengthen the CoG.

This chapter focuses on Peru’s national strategic planning and monitoring and evaluation systems. Peru has taken important steps over the last decade to improve the government’s capacity to monitor policy and spending performance. The chapter stresses as key challenges the lack of sufficient information available at regional and local level and the insufficient experience in defining key strategic national indicators, analysing data and using monitoring and evaluation. The chapter closes with a set of recommendations to address these issues.

This chapter examines multi-level governance in Peru. The chapter elaborates upon OECD tendencies in this area; however, empirical evidence and OECD analysis demonstrate that multi-level governance arrangements are country-specific. In Peru decentralisation is still an ongoing and unfinished process, and where important challenges have yet to be faced, which include clarifying mandates, better defining roles and objectives for regional governments, and improving intergovernmental communication. Additionally, this chapter also discusses specific issues related to human resource management and citizen participation at the local level.

This chapter looks at the management of Peru’s civil service as a basic building block of effective governance. The chapter focuses on the ambitious reform agenda associated with the implementation of the new Peruvian Civil Service Law and raises the main challenges for the Peruvian civil service, including a complex multitude of employment regulations, payment criteria and human resource management. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations to address these issues.

This chapter assesses the government of Peru’s strategic approach to implementing digital government in the public administration. It examines the recently crafted strategic vision for information society development: the Peruvian Digital Agenda 2.0 and its implementation plans. It recognises Peru’s significant progress with new legal and regulatory frameworks as well as the digital signature, electronic certificates and data protection, among others; however, the chapter stresses that further progress is needed. It offers advice to the government on how to improve digital government outcomes taking into account the OECD instrument on digital government strategies and international good practices.

This chapter assesses Peru’s open government reform agenda including the initiatives taken to promote stakeholder engagement at the central and local levels. It benchmarks Peru against OECD instruments, standards and principles. The chapter recognises the Secretariat of Public Management in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers as a key actor. This body is in charge of co-ordinating, designing and implementing open government policies in Peru. The chapter also acknowledges recent efforts to incorporate open government principles into the ongoing public sector reform efforts. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations to support Peru’s open government agenda.